The faces of mistrust: The image of lawyers in public opinion, jokes, and political discourse

University of Cincinnati Law Review

Volumn 66, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 805-845

  Galanter, Marc ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON   (United States)

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EID: 22044450489     PISSN: 00096881     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (183)

1. See generally Eric M. Uslaner, Democracy and Social Capital, in DEMOCRACY AND TRUST (Mark Warren ed., forthcoming) (on file with author);
2. Robert Putnam, Tuning In, Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America, 28 PS: POLITICAL SCIENCE AND POLITICS 664 (1995);
3. FRANCIS FUKUYAMA, TRUST: THE SOCIAL VIRTUES AND THE CREATION OF PROSPERITY (1995).
4. See Uslaner, supra note 1, at fig. 1.
5. See generally SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET & WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, THE CONFIDENCE GAP: BUSINESS, LABOR AND GOVERNMENT IN THE PUBLIC MIND (Rev'd ed., Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987) (1983);
6. ERIC M. USLANER, THE DECLINE OF COMITY IN CONGRESS 76-77 (1993).
7. See STEVEN C. CRAIG, THE MALEVOLENT LEADERS: POPULAR DISCONTENT IN AMERICA 11 tbl.1 (1993).
8. Kenneth Newton, Social and Political Trust, Paper Prepared for the Conference on Confidence in Democratic Institutions: America in Comparative Perspective, in CRITICAL CITIZENS: GLOBAL SUPPORT FOR DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT (Pippa Norris, ed., forthcoming 1999). Presumably the meaning of trust to respondents may vary across times and settings: for example, it may mean confidence in others' competence, ability to help, or their allegiance and loyalty. Does trust mean I expect to be served, sustained, or cared for? Not interfered with? Not betrayed? Or some or all?
9. Charles Peters, How Your Lawyer Does It, WASH. MONTHLY, Feb. 1974, at 33, 37.
10. David Denby, A Motion to Suppress, NEW YORK MAG., Aug. 1, 1994, at 52.
11. See J. WILLARD HURST, THE GROWTH OF AMERICAN LAW: THE LAW MAKERS 335-38 (1950).
12. See Ronald J. Gilson, Value Creation by Business Lawyers: Legal Skills and Asset Pricing, 94 YALE L.J. 239 (1984) (describing transactional lawyers as "transaction cost engineers").
13. See Mark C. Suchman & Mia L. Cahill, The Hired Gun as Facilitator: Lawyers and the Suppression of Business Disputes in Silicon Vally, 21 LAW & SOC. INQUIRY 679 (1996).
14. The classic text is Stewart Macauly, Non-Contractual Relations in Business: A Preliminary Study, 28 AM. SOC. REV. 55 (1963).
15. Much of the survey data reported in this section are derived from three national sample surveys, each conducted by telephone. Two of these surveys were conducted for The National Law Journal (NLJ), the first in 1986 and the second in 1993. The third major survey was conducted for the American Bar Association in 1993. The first of the NLJ surveys (n=1004) was published in David A. Kaplan, The NLJ Poll Results: Take Heed, Lawyers, NAT'L L.J., Aug. 18, 1986, at S-2.
16. A second survey (n=815), which largely replicates the 1986 survey and thus provides a useful reading of recent changes, was conducted for the NLJ and the West Publishing Company by Penn & Schoen Associates, Inc. This survey was published in Randall Samborn, Anti-Lawyer Attitude Up, NAT'L L.J., Aug. 9, 1993, at 1, 20.
17. The other 1993 survey (n= 1202) was conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc., for the American Bar Association. It was reported in Gary A. Hengstler, Vox Populi: The Public Perception of Lawyers: ABA Poll, A.B.A.J., Sept. 1993, at 60.
18. More extensive data can be found in PETER D. HART RESEARCH ASSOCIATES, A SURVEY OF ATTITUDES NATIONWIDE TOWARD LAWYERS AND THE LEGAL SYSTEM (Jan. 1993) [hereinafter HART SURVEY].
19. GORDON BLACK/USA TODAY SURVEY (1984), Search of Westlaw, Directories and Reference Materials, Statistical Data, POLL, Question ID: USGBUSA.84JUNE R29B 076.
20. See Kaplan, supra note 12, at S-4.
21. See id.
22. See Samborn, supra note 12, at 20.
23. See Randall Samborn, Survey Data Worksheets (July 1993) (unpublished worksheets, on file with the University of Cincinnati Law Review). "Somewhat dissatisfied" and "very dissatisfied" responses each increased from 8% to 10% and "don't know" responses increased from 1% to 4%. See id.
24. See HART SURVEY, supra note 12, at 25.
25. See id. Some 66% of all those who used a lawyer expressed satisfaction with the way they were represented. See id.
26. ABC NEWS/WASHINGTON POST SURVEY (May 1989), Search of Westlaw, Directories and Reference Materials, Statistical Data, POLL, Question ID: USABCWP.352 R19E.
27. See Samborn, supra note 12, at 20. Samborn reviews figures from Gallup and Roper polls that suggest a downward trend in estimations of the ethical character of lawyers since the mid-1970s. See id.
28. See HART SURVEY, supra note 12, at 5.
29. See ABA, LAWYER ADVERTISING AT THE CROSSROADS 64 tbl.III(B) (1995) (summarizing Gallup surveys from 1976-1993)
30. [hereinafter LAWYER ADVERTISING].
31. See Samborn, supra note 12, at 1. The results in an April 1994 poll (n=400) conducted by Wiese Research Associates, Inc. are virtually identical: "Thirty-four percent reported their attitudes toward lawyers had declined, more than half of these indicating they had declined a lot. Only eight percent reported their attitudes toward lawyers had improved over the past five years." LAWYER ADVERTISING, supra note 23, at 65-66.
32. PRINCETON SURVEY RESEARCH ASSOCIATES, GREAT AMERICAN TV POLL #5 (1991), Search of Westlaw, Directories and Reference Materials, Statistical Data, POLL, Question ID: USPSRA. 91TVO5 R66 055.
33. This is certainly not a new phenomenon. Back in 1949, when a national sample of adults was asked which of a list of professions and occupations they trusted the most, lawyers came in at the bottom (3% as opposed to 32% doctors, 26% professors and teachers). See GALLUP POLL (1949), Search of Westlaw, Directories and Reference Materials, Statistical Data, POLL, Question ID: USGALLUP. 439T QT11A O23 QT11A.
34. BLACK, supra note 13.
35. See HART SURVEY, supra note 12, at tbl.7. This "clients interest first" item contains an interesting ambiguity, for it might mean favoring client's interests over the lawyer's own interest, or, it might mean resisting the notion that the interests of the public or the legal system should override those of the client - a quality often admired by outsiders if not by clients.
36. See Samborn, supra note 12, at 20.
37. See HART SURVEY, supra note 12, at 4-5.
38. On the literature of legal nostalgia, see Marc Galanter, Lawyers in the Mist: the Golden Age of Legal Nostalgia, 100 DICK. L. REV. 549 (1996).
39. 2 ANTON-HERMANN CHROUST, THE RISE OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION IN AMERICA 17 (1965).
40. See also MAXWELL BLOOMFIELD, AMERICAN LAWYERS IN A CHANGING SOCIETY 1776-1876 32-58 (1976);
41. Gerald W. Gawalt, Sources cf Anti-Lawyer Sentiment in Massachusetts, 1740-1840, 14 AM. J. LEGAL HIST. 283 (1969);
42. CHARLES WARREN, A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN BAR 211-39 (1911).
43. CHROUST, supra note 31
44. (quoting 1 MCMASTER, HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES 302 (1927)).
45. Francis Nevins calls the late 50s-carly 60s period the "first golden age of the law film." See Francis Nevins, Law, Lawyers & Justice in Popular Fiction & Film, HUMAN. EDUC. May 1984, at 4.
46. Steven D. Stark, Perry Mason Meets Sonny Crockett: The History of Lawyers and the Police as Television Heroes, 42 U. MIAMI L. REV. 229, 255 (1987).
47. Anthony Chase, Lawyers and Popular Culture: A Review of Mass Media Portrayals of American Attorneys, AM. B. FOUND. RES. J. 281, 284 (1986) (noting that this image coalesced in the period from 1957 to 1963, from the time of Sputnik to the Kennedy assassination).
48. See also Michael Asimow, When Lawyers Were Heroes, 30 U.S.F.L.R. 1131 (1996).
49. Lipset and Schneider, supra note 3, at 15.
50. THE RULE OF LAW 8, 12 (Robert Paul Wolff ed., 1971).
51. LAW AGAINST THE PEOPLE: ESSAYS TO DEMYSTIFY LAW, ORDER AND THE COURTS 15 (Robert Lefcourt ed., 1971).
52. See Is LAW DEAD? (Eugene V. Rostow ed., 1971).
53. See, e.g., John W. Sheppard, Ethics, 49 FLA. B.J. 184, 184 (1975). With the overflow of Watergate and the revelation that a great majority of the offenders were members of the legal profession, the public image of the Bar seems to have reached a low ebb. . . . There seems to be a rising tide of resentment to the entire profession who [sic] guides the legal system in our country. Id.
54. See generally BURTON A. WEISBROD ET AL., PUBLIC INTEREST LAW: AN ECONOMIC AND INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS (1978);
55. COUNCIL FOR PUBLIC INTEREST LAW, BALANCING THE SCALES OF JUSTICE: FINANCING PUBLIC INTEREST LAW IN AMERICA (1976).
56. See generally the multi-volume ACCESS TO JUSTICE (Mauro Cappelletti et al. eds., 1978);
57. ACCESS TO JUSTICE AND THE WELFARE STATE (Mauro Cappelletti, ed., 1981).
58. See generally Abraham S. Blumberg, The Practice of Law as a Confidence Game: Cooptation of a Profession, 1 LAW & SOC'Y REV. 15 (1967);
59. MURRAY TEIGH BLOOM, THE TROUBLE WITH LAWYERS (1976);
60. VERDICTS ON LAWYERS (Ralph Nader & Mark Green eds., 1976);
61. JEROLD S. AUERBACH, UNEQUAL JUSTICE: LAWYERS AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN MODERN AMERICA (1976);
62. JETHRO K. LIEBERMAN, CRISIS AT THE BAR: LAWYERS' UNETHICAL ETHICS AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT (1978).
63. President James E. Carter, Address at the 100th Anniversary Dinner of the Los Angeles Bar Association (May 4, 1978), in President Carter's Attack on Lawyers, President Spann's Response and the Chief Justice Burger's Remarks, 64 A.B.A.J. 840, 842 (1978).
64. Id. at 843.
65. Id. at 842.
66. Id.
67. See Tom Goldstein, Carter's Attack on Lawyers, N.Y. TIMES, May 6, 1978, at 11 ("[L]eading lawyers around the country reacted with anger, bitterness, frustration and sadness yesterday to President Carter's assertion that the legal profession has been an impediment to social justice.").
68. See, e.g., The Laws Delay, WALL ST. J., May 10, 1978, at 24 (noting that, because "Washington itself has become the fountainhead of unnecessary laws and litigation," the President should "spend less time lashing out at lawyers in general and more time asking the government's lawyers just what it is they are trying to do");
69. Mr. Carter's Class Struggle, WASH. POST, May 7, 1978, at C6 (dismissing President Carter's remarks as "unfocused resentment").
70. See Public Opinion Online, Roper Center, Apr. 8, 1989,
71. available in LEXIS, News, Arcnws Library Accession No. 0132789.
72. See id. at Accession No. 0116933.
73. The American Bar Association's Special Commission on Evaluation of Professional Standards was known as the Kutak Commission. The impetus for a new ethics code came in part from the damage to the bar's public image occasioned by Watergate. See William B. Spann, Jr., The Legal Profession Needs a New Code Ethics, BAR LEADER, Nov.-Dec. 1977, at 2.
74. See generally Ted Schneyer, Professionalism as Bar Politics: The Making of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, 14 L. & SOC. INQUIRY 677 (1989).
75. See id.
76. See Gerald J. Clark, Fear and Loathing in New Orleans: The Sorry Fate of the Kutak Commission's Rules, 17 SUFFOLK U. L. REV. 79, 84-85 (1983).
77. The signal event in the crystallization of the "too much law" critique was the National Conference on the Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice, held in April 1976, at the instance of Chief Justice Warren Burger. The proceedings are published at 70 F.R.D. 79 (1976). The Conference, known as the Pound Conference, commemorated Roscoe Pound's 1906 address of the same title; the participants (like Pound) propounded "popular" perceptions unaided by any discernable consultation of the broader public. See id.
78. Early outcroppings of this critique are noted in Marc S. Galanter, Reading the Landscape of Disputes: What We Know and Don't Know (And Think We Know) About Our Allegedly Contentious and Litigious Society, 31 UCLA L. REV. 4, 6-11 (1983);
79. David Trubek, Turning Away From the Law, 82 MICH. L. REV. 824 (1984).
80. The Council on the Role of Courts, The Role of Courts in American Society (Jethro Lieberman ed., 1984).
81. The restriction on the flow of information about the profession was supported and enforced by the Canons of Professional Ethics, which condemned as "unprofessional" various forms of advertising, solicitation, getting business through agents and "furnishing or inspiring newspaper comments," and its successor, the Code of Professional Responsibility. The abrupt turnabout in the late 1970s was a by-product of the Supreme Court's 1977 decision in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350 (1977), which ruled that sweeping restrictions on lawyer advertising violated the First Amendment and liberated lawyers to talk to the press about their practices. Within two years, media coverage of the law was transformed. On the swift arrival of the "new information order" of the law, see MARC GALANTER & THOMAS M. PALAY, TOURNAMENT OF LAWYERS: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE BIG LAW FIRM 68-76 (1991).
82. The Production Code of the Motion Picture Producers and Directors of America, included a General Principle that "[l]aw, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation." The text of the Code may be found in GARTH JOWETT, FILM: THE DEMOCRATIC ART, App. 4 (1976). The weakening of censorship, starting in the 1950s, is detailed in chapter XIII. See id.
83. See Rorie Sherman, Small Screen Takes a Shine to Lawyers, NAT'L L.J., Feb. 4, 1991, at 9.
84. A similar "downward trajectory" reappears in the portrayal of Supreme Court justices in the novel, drama, and film. Over the past fifty years, Laura Krugman Ray finds that there are "two related tendencies: an increasing familiarity with the Court and a declining reverence for the figure of the Justice." Laura Krugman Ray, Judicial Fictions: Images of Supreme Court Justices in the Novel, Drama, and Film, 39 ARIZ. L. REV. 151, 153 (1997).
85. Lest we be tempted to dismiss public impression of imaginary lawyers, it should be noted that some members of the public conflate imaginary and real lawyers. The 1993 NLJ survey asked people to volunteer the lawyer they most admired; the top ten included Perry Mason and Matlock. See Samborn, supra note 12, at 24.
86. See Michael Pfau et al., Television Viewing and Public Perception of Attorneys, 21 HUM. COMM. RES. 307, 320-21 (1995).
87. See id. at 321 tbl.1.
88. See id.
89. Id. at 325.
90. See LAWYER ADVERTISING, supra note 23, at 71.
91. Id. at 66.
92. Many assertions here are based on analysis of an archive of jokes about lawyers (and related jokes) compiled by the author. This collection is based on some six hundred books of jokes, anecdotes for speakers, etc., published over the last century and a half, other recorded media (disk, CD-Rom and on-line sources) for the period since 1980, and some material collected from informants. A full discussion of the methodological problems of assembling a relatively complete portrait of the "written record," of inference from that written record to the oral tradition, and from that oral tradition to public perceptions and sentiments about law and lawyers must await my book on the subject, presently in progress.
93. See David L. Yas, First Thing We Do is Kill All the Lawyer Jokes, MASS. LAWYERS WEEKLY, Oct. 20, 1997, at 11.
94. Id.
95. See Jethro K. Lieberman & Torn Goldstein, The Popular Image of Lawyers in America (May 31, 1990) (unpublished paper presented to the annual meeting of the Law and Society Association, on file with author).
96. JEFF ROVIN, 500 GREAT LAWYER JOKES 140 (1992).
97. ELLIE GROSSMAN, LAWYERS FROM HELL JOKE BOOK 11-12 (1993). In most versions of this popular story, the animal sighted is a bear. Hence in the subsequent discussion, this joke is referred to as Outrun Bear.
98. This joke is from an unnamed collection of lawyer jokes, downloaded from the Internet and sent to me by Robert Diamond of Monsey, New York in September 1994.
99. BLANCHE KNOTT, BLANCHE KNOTT'S TRULY TASTELESS LAWYER JOKES 73 (1990).
100. Supra note 76.
101. Supra note 76 (substantially identical to SID BEHRMAN, THE LAWYER JOKE BOOK 16-17(1991)).
102. Supra note 76.
103. KNOTT, supra note 77, at 27-28.
104. The lawyer as sign-language interpreter perfectly embodies Maureen Cain's notion of lawyer as translator. See Maureen Cain, The General Practice Lawyer and the Client: Towards a Radical Reconception, in THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE PROFESSIONS: LAWYERS, DOCTORS AND OTHERS (Robert Dingwall & Philip Lewis eds., 1983). The joke also implies that the lawyer will end up with the entire stake over which the disputants are contending, an outcome celebrated in many jokes and in a famous print that depicts contending litigants pulling a cow in opposite directions while the lawyer milks it.
105. Supra note 76.
106. A "client" version of this joke appeared a few years before the partner version, but has not reappeared since: Fitzgerald was sitting beside the deathbed of his lawyer, Dolan. The attorney knew he was doomed and said iwith a sigh, "Dear friend, I've a confession to make. A year ago I robbed you of $200,000 in your fim's merger deal, and I also put your firm's control in my possession. I talked your wife into divorcing you and - " "It's all right, old friend," said Fitzgerald, "I poisoned you." LARKY WILDE, THE ULTIMATE LAWYERS JOKE BOOK 124 (1987). The "partner" version presents treachery as the modus operandi of the legal profession; in the "client" version, the treacherous lawyer is repaid in kind by his client victim, joining the category of jokes in which the tables are turned on the arrogant lawyer.
107. ROVIN, supra note 74, at 56.
108. Oral tradition (collected by the author, Madison, Wisconsin, 1990).
109. In addition to this "take it with you" story, there are several other lines of The Check in the Coffin stories. In one, the deposit of the money is explained not as part of the deceased's plan for financing in the next world, but as a respectful gesture by the mourners, inspired by family tradition or cross-cultural experience. In a third version of the story, the mourners deposit money neither as agents of the dead man nor as a gratuitous prestation to him. Instead, they are responding to an explicit condition in his will. Yet another version involves a pact among friends that the survivors will place money in the coffin to assist the next-worldly finances of whomever should die first. All of these apparently descend from an older story, most frequently told about Jews, but also about other "canny" groups, such as Scots and Ibos, see CHRISTIE DAVIES, ETHNIC HUMOR AROUND THE WORLD: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS 112 (1990), which in turn descended from a medieval talc about the miser who wants to take his gold with him.
110. DAVID RIESMAN, Toward an Anthropological Science of Law and the Legal Profession, in INDIVIDUALISM RECONSIDERED AND OTHER ESSAYS 423, 450 (1954).
111. The analysis that follows is inspired by Richard Raskin's exemplary Life is Like a Glass of Tea: Studies of Classic Jewish Jokes, in which he develops three "interpretive frameworks" that he finds "useful for understanding many classical Jewish jokes."
112. RICHARD RASKIN, LIFE IS LIKE A GLASS OF TEA: STUDIES OF CLASSIC JEWISH JOKES 23 (1992). The first is role fiasco in which a character displays "outrageous incompetence in: a) performing or sustaining a given role; b) assessing what behavior or attitude a given situation calls for, or c) thinking logically and realistically." Id. A second comic perspective is tactical manoeuvre in which the character "is essentially a player who is out to get away with something, to pull something off, to evade a responsibility, to get more than his share of something he wants, to get the better of, or turn the tables on, someone else, to get around a prohibition, etc." Id. at 24. The third framework is exemplary deviance in which "the comic behavior on display in the punch-line is seen as a positive model we are implicitly invited to admire and emulate, even though it marks a break with conventional codes." Id. Thus we have outrageous failure to perform, crafty gamesmanship, and admirable deviance. Most lawyer jokes invoke one of these directly or indirectly. Raskin thinks that jokes which can be "understood in two (or three) of [these] perspectives . . . are the very best of the classic[] [Jewish jokes]." Id. at 25. The Check in the Coffin is the only lawyer joke that invites analysis in all three of these perspectives.
113. For examples of jokes indigenous to the legal setting, see infra notes 129-30 and accompanying text.
114. Of the thirteen betrayal jokes listed in the Appendix to this Article, eight (The Check in the Coffin, The Collision and the Flask, Mine Died, Safe Unlocked, Extra $100 Bill, Poisoned You, Trust Me, Repayment during Robbery) were predominantly or frequently told about Jewish protagonists before becoming lawyer jokes. See infra Part IV.C.
115. The displacement of Jews in tendentious jokes is part of a larger post-Holocaust phenomenon of avoidance of joking about Jews, augmented by the more recent spread of "political correctness" taboos on ethnic and racial characteristics as objects of jokes.
116. The results of this search are summarized in the Appendix. See infra Part IV.B-C.
117. See Christopher Scanlon, That's Not Funny - That's Sick, ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, Dec. 2, 1987, at ID (interviewing Professor Alan Dundes about the serious side of sick jokes).
118. Linda Shrives, There Oughtta be a Law against that Jokes - or Should There? CHI. TRIB., Aug. 3, 1989, at C1.
119. Ken Ringle, Lawyer Jokes Abound, and the Defense Objects, L.A. TIMES, Sept. 4, 1989, at V1.
120. Jack Anderson, U.S. Has Become a Nation of Lawsuits, WASH. POST, Jan. 25, 1985, at B8.
121. Paul W. McCracken, Board of Contributors: The Big Domestic Issues: Slow Growth, WALL ST. J., Oct. 4, 1991, at A14. The scholarly counterpart of such rhetoric was the claim of an enterprising economist to ascertain the optimum number of lawyers and determine that each excess lawyer was costing the country one million dollars annually.
122. See STEPHEN P. MAGEE ET AL., BLACK HOLE TARIFFS AND ENDOGENOUS POLITICAL THEORY: POLITICAL ECONOMY IN GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM 111-21 (1989).
123. These claims were cited approvingly at the PRESIDENT'S COUNCIL ON COMPETITIVENESS, AGENDA FOR CIVIL JUSTICE REFORM IN AMERICA 1 (1991) and demolished by serious scholars.
124. See also Frank B. Cross, The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Economists: An Empirical Evaluation of the Effect of Lawyers on the United States Economy and Political System, 70 TEX. L. REV. 645 (1992);
125. Charles R. Epp, Do Lawyers Impair Economic Growth?, 17 L. & SOC. INQUIRY 585 (1992).
126. These campaigns arc described in Stephen Daniels, The Question of Jury Competence and the Politics of Civil Justice Reform: Symbols, Rhetoric and Agenda-Building, 52 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS. 269 (1989);
127. Robert Hayden, The Cultural Logic of a Political Crisis: Common Sense, Hegemony, and the Great American Liability Insurance Famine of 1986, 11 STUD. L., POL. & SOC. 95 (1991);
128. STEPHEN DANIELS & JOANNE MARTIN, CIVIL JURIES AND THE POLITICS OF REFORM (1995);
129. JEAN STEFANCIC & RICHARD DELGADO, NO MERCY: HOW CONSERVATIVE THINK TANKS AND FOUNDATIONS CHANGED AMERICA'S SOCIAL AGENDA (1996).
130. Commenting on the performance of the criminal justice system in the Simpson trial, a prominent Washington lawyer and former United States assistant attorney general observed: The civil justice system seems equally demented, with freakish punitive damage bonanzas for persons who pour coffee on themselves or ricochet golf balls into their own foreheads. Immense class-action settlements benefit mostly lawyers, while actual victims of misfortune are further victimized by the system to which they turn for relief. Was Justice Served?, WALL ST. J., Oct. 4, 1995, at A16 (quoting Theodore B. Olson).
131. See LAWYER ADVERTISING, supra note 23, at 64-65.
132. Evidence for this is summarized in Marc Galanter, News from Nowhere: the Debased Debate on Civil Justice, 71 DENV. U. L. REV. 77 (1993).
133. That the earlier foils in the series are victims is even more evident in the other versions of the joke, for example: At a cemetery outride of Buffalo three men - a contractor, a physician, and a lawyer - joined the grieving widow at the services for their dearest friend. The widow asked if each could place an offering in the casket, as this had long been a custom in her husband's family. The contractor nodded his head and then said a short prayer before placing a hundred-dollar bill in the casket. The physician, nearly in tears, also placed a hundred-dollar bill in the casket. Then the lawyer scribbled out a check for three hundred dollars, put it in the casket, and pocketed the two hundred dollars in cash. JESS M. BRALLIER, LAWYERS AND OTHER REPTILES 9-10 (1992).
134. See Galanter & Palay, supra note 59.
135. Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Book Review, SOCIETY, May/June 1997, at 88, 89
136. (reviewing SOL M. LINOWITZ WITH MICHAEL MAYER, THE BETRAYED PROFESSION: LAWYERING AT THE END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (1994)).
137. On the literature of legal nostalgia, see Galanter, supra note 30.
138. A.W.B. Simpson, Legal Iconoclasts and Legal Ideals, 58 U. CIN. L. REV. 819, 825 (1990).
139. Blair S. Walker, Readers Find Something to Joke about in Lawyers, USA TODAY, Apr. 1, 1992, at 4B.
140. DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT THE LAWYER . . . ? (Indiana University School of Law) (undated, c. late 1991 or early 1992);
141. WE ARE NOT THE ENEMY (Anderson, Kill, Olick & Oshinsky) (undated);
142. LAWYER JOKES (Swanson & Gieser, Santa Ana, CA) (1993). A mail-order firm specializing in "products and gifts for lawyers" includes in its Holiday 1997 catalog a large assortment of items based on lawyer jokes-for example, T-shirts depicting a shark and inscribed "Trust me/I'm a lawyer."
143. FOR COUNSEL: THE CATALOG FOR LAWYERS 24 (1997).
144. See Christie Davies, Exploring the Thesis of the Self-deprecating Jewish sense of Humor, 4 HUMOR 189, 190 (1991).
145. See D.J. Bennett, The Psychological Meaning of Anti-Negro Jokes, FACT, Mar.-Apr. 1964, at 55.
146. Naomi Katz & Eli Katz, Tradition and Adaptation in American Jewish Humor, 84 J. AM. FOLKLORE 215, 219 (1971).
147. Id. But compare Bennett, who observes: [R]ace and nationality jokes are by far the most popular among the "better" members of the ridiculed group. No one feel the need to be superior to the thickly accented "ghetto" Jew more than the emancipated Jewish bourgeois, and nobody feel the need to separate himself from the ignorant, backward drawling Southern Negro more than the educated middle-class Negro. Bennett, supra note 111, at 56.
148. Dan Ben-Amos, The "Myth" of Jewish Humor, 32 W. FOLKLORE 112, 129 (1973).
149. Telephone Interview with Brent Swanson, Esq., in Santa Ana, Cal. (Jan. 27, 1998).
150. WE ARE NOT THE ENEMY, supra note 109.
151. The agency that produced this brochure received a special recognition award from the Washington Advertising Club for work that "pushed the envelope on creativity." Carolyn Myles, First-place awards start Addy-ing up for EPB, WASH. TIMES, Apr. 13, 1992, at B4. The jokes are also featured on the law firm's web site. An administrator at the firm estimated that half the firm's lawyers were offended by the use of the jokes, but they are retained because "clients love it." Telephone interview with Maxa Luppi, Administrator of Anderson, Kill, Olick & Oshinsky, in New York, N.Y. (Feb. 4, 1998).
152. Christy Davies remarks on the capacity of members of a minority to laugh at their own group in many different ways including those favored by the majority because of the high degree of social . . . differentiation [within the minority] . . . and through the ability of each individual member of a minority group to manipulate and slide between his or her majority and minority reference groups in such a way that the jokes never applies to him or her personally. DAVIES, supra note 110, at 192.
153. GERSHON LEGMAN, THE RATIONALE OF THE DIRTY JOKE: AN ANALYSIS OF SEXUAL HUMOR 13-14 (1968).
154. Stanley Brandes, Jewish-American Dialect Jokes and Jewish-American Identity, 45 JEWISH SOC. STUD. 233, 238 (1983).
155. DAVIES, supra note 110, at 202.
156. Id. Cf. Raskin, supra note 89, at 71-120 (tracing the transformation of stories that began as anti-Semitic jokes about Jews into classic Jewish jokes told by Jews).
157. Laughing Matters: You Think That's Funny?, ECONOMIST, Dec. 20, 1997, at 23.
158. Peter Shaw, Downward Mobility and Praise Inflation, 33 SOCIETY 59 (1996) (emphasis added).
159. Simpson, supra note 107, at 825-26. This observation fits many sorts of lawyer jokes, including those discussed in this Article. I am less certain that it can be extended to other kinds of lawyer jokes, such as the "death wish" jokes (e.g., what do you call six thousand lawyers as the bottom of the sea) that are currently in vogue.
160. For a masterful discussion, see generally DAVID LUBAN, LAWYERS AND JUSTICE: AN ETHICAL STUDY (1988), especially chapter nine.
161. Roger G. Cramton, Wat Do Lawyer Jokes Tell Us About Lawyers and Lawyering?, 23(1) CORNELL L. F. 3, 9 (1996).
162. Id. at 5.
163. Id. at 5, 4.
164. JOEY ADAMS, SON OF ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HUMOR 92 (1970). The joke has been current since before 1941.
165. EVAN ESAR, ESAR'S JOKE DICTIONARY 253 (1945).
166. BARBARA A. CURRAN, AMERICAN BAR ASS'N AND AMERICAN BAR FOUND., THE LEGAL NEEDS OF THE PUBLIC: THE FINAL REPORT OF A NATIONAL SURVEY 234 (1977).
167. A comparable skepticism is displayed by Canadian respondents, who agreed: [H]igher paid lawyers get better results for their clients; that lawyers are always finding loop-holes to get around the law, that lawyers get too many guilty people off; . . . [and] that lawyers do not work as hard for poor clients as for clients who are rich; that lawyers are more interested in making money than in helping their clients. Robert J. Moore, Reflections of Canadians on the Law and the Legal System: Legal Research Institute Survey of Respondents in Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg, in LAW IN A CYNICAL SOCIETY? OPINION AND LAW IN THE 1980s 41, 53 (Dale Gibson & Janet K. Baldwin eds., 1985). Similarly, in England, most of those with a view of the matter agreed that "[t]he poor usually get the raw end of the stick in legal matters."
168. BRIAN ABEL-SMITH ET AL., LEGAL PROBLEMS AND THE CITIZEN 250 (1973). Heavy majorities viewed lawyers as mercenaries: "'Lawyers are mainly interested in making money' and '[f]or a price lawyers will use every trick in the book to help their clients.'" Id. at 249, 250.
169. CURRAN, supra note 131.
170. ABC NEWS/WASHINGTON POST SURVEY (June 1985), Search of Westlaw, Directories and Reference Materials, Statistical Data, POLL, Question ID: USACWP.195.R24. When asked which types of people were "not apt to be treated fairly by the law," respondents identified the poor (54%), uneducated (47%), and blacks (33%); only 5% thought "top business executives" were treated unfairly. Indeed, people felt that courts are not sufficiently severe with business offenders. When asked which types of persons "the courts are too lenient with," government officials and top business executives ranked, along with heroin users and frequent offenders, just below dope peddlers. Roper Report 87-7, July 1987 (on file with author).
171. News Release, U.S. News & World Rep., Jan. 21, 1995 (on file with author).
172. Much as did the woman lawyer in The Client (1994) who enfolds the endangered child client in maternal protectiveness.
173. In this film too, there is an ambiguous turn away from law practice at the end when the hero decides that his ability to perform by identifying with his clients will eventually lead to his corruption.
174. In the 1993 NLJ survey, people were asked if a lawyer should represent a client that the lawyer knows is guilty of a crime. Fifty-seven percent answered that the lawyer should undertake the representation and 35% said the lawyer should not. But 62% thought that it would be wrong for a lawyer to "use . . . a technicality to free a client he knows to have committed the crime" and only 31% thought it would be right. NLJ Survey worksheets, questions 20, 21.
175. Cf. Benjamin Wittes, Frustrating Targets: Juries Reluctant to Convict Lawyers Who Represent Bad Guys, BROWARD DAILY BUS. REV., Nov. 4, 1997, at A1 (explaining that prosecutors find juries unwilling to convict "private lawyers for getting too close to their clients' illegal conduct"). According to one former U.S. Attorney General, 'Juries expect lawyers to be manipulative, creative, and devious . . . : They have an appreciation of the role defense lawyers play. They take a long, deep breath and give these lawyers a wide berth - notwithstanding the fact that lawyers are held in ill repute and there are lawyer jokes." Id. at A7.
176. Differentiation by type of client appeals to some students of legal ethics. Hence David Luban proposes that lawyers should have higher duties of protection toward individual clients than toward organizational ones. LUBAN, supra note 125, at 206-34.
177. Of course, tendentious interpretation of lawyer jokes is not confined to the political right. A Yale law student, fresh from his summer job, who detects some resonance between the revilement in the jokes and his distaste for the anti-labor work into which he poured his energy and craft, reflects that "[l]awyer jokes . . . proliferate because the structure of the American legal system consistently encourages lawyers to perform work that is profoundly anti-humanist [sic!]." Jonathan Kay, Behind Lawyers' Jokes, NAT'L L.J., Jan. 13, 1997, at A15.
178. Bob Eaton, No Joking Matter, NEWSWEEK, Sept. 23, 1996, at 20.
179. For an analysis of jokes (and other expressions of public opinion) about the contingent fee, see Marc Galanter, Anyone Can Fall Down a Manhole: The Contingency Fee and Its Discontents, 47 DEPAUL L. REV. 457 (1998).
180. The lawyer joke is as follows: A young lawyer in a swank Beverly Hills restaurant spotted J. Paul Getty, the billionare oil man. The lawyer went over to his table and said, "Mr. Getty, please forgive me for interrupting your lunch, but please Mr. Getty, I'm expecting two of my clients to come in and I would consider it an enomous favor if sometime during our lunch, you could stop by my table and say, 'Hello, Bernie.' You don't know what it would mean to me . . . ." The lawyer returned to his table, where his clients joined him. Getty and his guest were finished and were on their way out of the restaurant when Getty remembered the young lawyer's request. He went back to the lawyer's table and, tapping him on the shoulder, said, "Hello, Bernie." The lawyer said, "not now, Getty, I'm eating . . . ." HARRY T. SHATTER & ANGIE PAPADAKIS, THE HOWLS OF JUSTICE: COMEDY'S DAY IN COURT 31-32 (1988).
181. The joke is as follows: Two lawyers are in a bank, when, suddenly, armed robbers burst in. While several of the robbers take the money from the tellers, others line the customers, including the lawyers, up against a wall, and proceed to take their wallets, watches, etc. While this is going on lawyer number one jams something in lawyer number two's hand. Without looking down, lawyer number two whispers, "What is this?" to which lawyer number one replies, "it's that $50 I owe you." Derek Cashman, Canonical List of Lawyer Humor (Court Jester) (last modified Mar. 2, 1995) .
182. The joke is as follows: A paralegal, an associate and a partner of a prestigious New York law firm an walking though Central Park on their way to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out in a puff of smoke. The Genie says, "I usually only grant three wishes, so I'll give each of you just one." "Me first, me first," says the paralegal "I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a can in the world." Poof. He's gone. In astonishment, "Me next, me next, " says the associate. "I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my persoral meseuse, an endless supply of pina chelates and the love of my life." Poof. She's gone. "You're next," the Genie says to the partner. The partner says, "I want those two back in the library after lunch." Electronic mail message from Dan Steward (Feb. 28, 1997) (on file with author).
183. See MILTON BERLE, MORE OF THE BEST OF MILTON BERLE'S PRIVATE JOKE FILE 274-75 (Milt Rosen ed., 1993).